Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to page 21 of the Victims Strategy, published in September 2018, what progress has been made on abolishing the rule of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme which denied compensation for some victims who lived with their attacker prior to 1979.

The Government is planning to abolish the so-called pre-1979 “same roof rule” from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme. Under this rule, a compensation award cannot be made for a criminal injury sustained by a child or adult before October 1979 if, at the time of the incident giving rise to that injury, the applicant (as a child or as an adult) and the assailant were living together as members of the same family.

We will be laying an amended Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2012 before Parliament in due course. The amended Scheme will remove the pre-1979 same roof rule. Importantly, it is intended to enable victims whose applications for compensation had previously been refused under this rule to reapply. Applicants will still need to meet all the remaining eligibility criteria within the Scheme.